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1
SILAR
“They want to send us women.”
The warden’s words fell over the room like a thunderclap.
The astounded silence that followed was broken not by words but by the sound of four adult Zabrian males leaning suddenly forward in their chairs, making the old wood creak beneath us.
My chair creaked perhaps loudest of all.
The sound seemed to embolden Zohro on my right. He pulled off his weathered, wide-brimmed hat and aimed it at Warden Tenn like a weapon, his eyes gone bright white with what could have been keen curiosity but, knowing him, was probably rage.
“What do you mean, women?”
“Are they convicts?” Garrek piped up, his voice deep and charred-sounding. “They have only ever sent boys before.”
Zohro snorted and Fallon flicked his whip-like tail across the floor. None of us needed to be reminded of that fact. We had all been young boys upon our arrival here, the first generation of underage Zabrian criminals dumped on this Empire-forsaken planet. Too young to send to the Zabrian mines, too irredeemable in the eyes of the empire to remain on Zabria.
And now they want to send us women…
“No,” Warden Tenn said. Stationed here by the empire, he was the only male within a distance of a hundred spans that had come here for his career instead of as a result of his crimes. “The women are not convicted of anything. They are not coming here via the same program you all did.”
“What, then? Why are they being sent here?”
Fallon, Garrek, and Zohro’s heads all swivelled to me. Somewhat startled, I realized it was I who had spoken.
“So Silent Silar speaks when the subject relates to females. Good to know,” Zohro sneered, leaning back in his chair now and replacing his hat upon his head. In the shadow of the beaten brim, his eyes still glowed.
“It’s a good question no matter who asked it,” Fallon said. “Why are they coming here?”
“They’re being sent as brides. For you,” Warden Tenn clarified when we all responded to that remark with a stretch of dumbfounded silence. “To marry.”
“Brides.” Zohro and Fallon said the word at the exact same moment. Zohro with incredulous disdain, Fallon breathing it with something close to wonder. Garrek and I exchanged guarded glances as the warden went on.
“Yes. Brides. The empire has decided, now that you are adults and have served so much time here, that it would be unnecessarily cruel to deprive you of female companionship into the remainder of your adult years.”
“Ha!” Zohro dragged his tall body out of his chair. I watched in silence as he began to pace, his pink hide darker than usual in the dim light of the warden’s office, his eyes killing white. My tail twitched close to the blade I kept in my boot.
“The empire cares nothing about cruelty,” Zohro growled. “This is nothing but a placation, a flimsy attempt to distract us from the fact that they should have tried to reintegrate us into Zabrian life by now, but they have not. They are leaving us here among the dust and the dung and trying to bribe our acceptance of such a fate with women.”
“There was never any indication we’d be taken back to Zabria,” Garrek grunted, rubbing calloused fingers along his dark blue jaw. “We’ve all committed crimes. This was always meant to be our recompense. It’s better than what we would have faced in the mines.”
“Is it?” Zohro challenged. “At least in the mines we’d serve our time and then be out eventually. We’ve been here more than half our lives and now they want us to bed down and marry! To breed. They are dangling women in front of us instead of the lives we should have had!” His eyes went so white they looked like stars in his face. “This is the end. This means there will never be anything else for us but this place.”
His words settled heavily among us all, only to be suddenly dispelled by a flippant snort from Fallon.
“You are a dramatic ass,” he said, his eyes, usually warm and dark, flashing briefly white. “I do not know why you hold on to hope of ever being taken back to Zabria. I barely remember our home planet!” He sliced his claws through the air, gesturing to Garrek and me. “We have all managed to build a life here.”
“Is that what you call it?” Zohro asked, halting his pacing and fixing Fallon with his white stare. “A life? Running cattle in the heat and weathering the cold? Blinking infernal dust out of our eyes every morning and wiping it out of every crack and crevice each night? Ancient tech that crumbles the moment that you so much as breathe on it?”
“I could put up with any sort of life if there were a good woman in it,” Fallon retorted. As if deciding he were finished with Zohro, he swivelled in his seat to face Warden Tenn again. “What do you need from us? Ranch inspection? A cattle count? Mine have fared well over the winter. I know I could provide for a wife if given the chance.”
Though we were all four of us adults, Fallon was the youngest and most earnest. But there was more than youthful enthusiasm in his face now. His eyes flashed briefly white again, his face drawn tight with something that looked very much like hunger.
“I need your vote,” the warden replied. “Our province is the first to be offered a chance at the bride program. A majority vote of aye means the program will go ahead. A majority vote of nay means that the chance will instead be given to Warden Hallum’s men in the next province.”
Garrek shifted in his chair and Fallon sat up very straight.
